I recently finished listening to Patrick O’Brian’s Master and Commander, narrated by Patrick Tull, which was excellent. I’d read the first three of O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series, and though I’d enjoyed them, I also didn’t remember a thing about them and had no real urge to keep going. I got the audiobook of Master and Commander out of the library, thinking it might get me interested in the series again—and also, if it worked, there were lots and lots of them to fill my commute.
Audio is a good way for me to experience these, because I’m not able to skim past the nautical stuff. Moreover, by listening to the narration, I can get a fairly good picture of what’s going on, which is enjoyable and exciting. Hearing the prose also lets me savor the humor (including some jokes I probably missed the first time) and the skillful way O’Brian uses omniscient point-of-view to show the life of the ship. In the future, however, I may read/skim the books I haven’t read yet to get the big picture and remove the tension, and then listen to the audio versions for the fine details. Since I remembered so little about this book, I got perhaps too caught up in the story, to the point where I kept wanting to tell random people confidingly, “I’m worried about James Dillon.”
Dillon is the Lieutenant on the Sophie, Jack Aubrey’s first command, and one of the things I’d forgotten was how much of the book, the first in the Aubrey-Maturin [*] series, is concerned with someone other than Aubrey or Maturin. I’m not quite happy with the Dillon arc, absorbing as it was; the setup is straight out of Dunnett or Kay, while the resolution is entirely plausible but of a different genre.
The book is very episodic, covering the course of Jack’s command of the Sophie; the movie (which I enjoyed vastly) picks out specific incidents and uses them to ornament an entirely different plot framework. If I had more time, I would love to plot out the way that the ship’s fortunes rise and fall over the course of the book, as I think it might prove instructive. Even the slowish start, of getting the Sophie ready to sail, has its hills and valleys; and by the end of the book, we’re heading up mountains and down crevasses. It was highly absorbing and I really enjoyed it.
[*] Oh, and Aubrey and Maturin aren’t anything other than platonic friends. I consider this indisputable, since a minor thread concerns how the ship’s Master has a terrible crush on Aubrey, which is blindingly obvious to everyone except Jack, even though Jack perfectly well knows the Master’s sexual orientation (not that any of the characters use that term). Can’t get any straighter than that.
You’re in for a treat. Patrick Tull’s “Recorded Books” readings of the O’Brian books are works of art in their own right. On no account should you ever listen to any of the “Books on Tape” versions of these—the reader is terrible, and American to boot.
I finished listening to the last 15 books in the set earlier this year. It took me a long time, since I only have 35-45 minutes per day of commute, and I almost never listen anywhere else. I want to find Patrick Tull and buy him a very nice drink.
Incidentally, I have always felt that Master and Commander is the weakest book of the 20, despite having a couple of wonderful scenes (e.g. the first meeting of Aubrey and Maturin, and “Jack, you have debauched my sloth.”) Post-Captain is very fine, but rather a different kettle of fish, partaking much more of Jane Austen than C.S. Forester. H.M.S. Surprise finally fuses both worlds for keeps, and the series takes off from there. Again, all in my opinion. I have read the series through once, listened to them all once, and expect to read them all again (in my new lovely Norton boxed set) starting this winter some time.
I honestly don’t know whether you would do better to read them first, then listen for detail, or listen to them first for flavor and tone, then read for detail. It might actually work better the latter way—especially if you feel that the characters are more alive and human in the spoken version.
Blather blather blather—yes, I could talk about these books all day. (And did, once, when I attended an all-day Smithsonian Resident Associates program on O’Brian, hosted by Ken Ringle of the Baltimore Sun. The name ‘Ringle’ will become familiar to you later on in the series, and the ‘Ringle’ in the stories was named for this particular journalist.)
David Tate: my library seems to have the Tull readings almost exclusively, but I’d seen reviews talking about the various other readers and strongly recommending Tull, so I am well warned. Thanks, though.
I appear to have forgotten to say that I initially had trouble with this reading, distinguishing between Jack and Stephen in the dialogue; I got it eventually, and perhaps it would have been easier if I’d been more familiar with British accents.
I read very fast and tend to skim, so I’d actually be listening for detail no matter what. You’re right that the dialogue does a bit better in the reading. However, I probably won’t start reading them, if at all, until after HMS Surprise which I have read before (that’s the one with the sloth, btw), so I might have the voices down already. Anyway, it’s a question of just how much tension I can stand on my daily commute, that’s all. =>
Stephen with a British accent ?
My impression, from having read the whole series once and being three books into a reread, is that the movie does actually include at least one detail, incident or character from every book in the series – we don’t get Killick’s glorious cantankerousness until HMS Surprise, for one thing.
Emmet: Gah, sorry, British Isles (is that accurate?).
It was really bad when there were these no-tag dialogues between Stephen and Dillion. I probably misattributed some things even with the slightly different tones and the content to guide.
British Isles (is that accurate?).
Probably not. I would guess that an Irishman would bristle at the notion that Erin is a British anything.
One of the things that I love most about the Tull readings is that his voice for Stephen is distinctively Irish without having anything of the caricatured “Sure and begorrah” singsong we hear so often. The other thing I love is that he knows how to make all of the period idiom sound natural, so that when Jack says “What a creature you are, Stephen” it sounds not the least bit stilted. If anyone ever tries to do an audiobook edition of Jack Vance, they would be well advised to ask Mr. Tull to read it.
More belated comments…
Kate wrote: I read very fast and tend to skim, so I’d actually be listening for detail no matter what.
This point is being driven home to me of late, as I try to listen to The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax. The reader isn’t too bad, but I’m finding it hard to enjoy the story. This is one of those books that is not very well written and certainly not believable, but that I have enjoyed in the past as a fluffy romp with some good lines and fun ideas. The problem is, when you listen to it, you can’t skim over the inane parts — you get them presented in all earnest at conversational speed.
I had a similar (though less strong) reaction to Lawrence Block’s The Burglar in the Library. A good reader, an author I like, a fun story, lots of great one-liners… but this is Late Rhodenbarr, and Mr. Block has gotten a bit self-indulgent in his mannerisms and delivery. I don’t notice it when reading the print book, but spoken out loud it becomes very tedious. I had no such reaction to the audio version of earlier books like The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian.
I now have a morbid desire to find an audiobook of some favorite Jack Vance work. It would either be an exalting experience, or the kind of thing that should be barred by the Geneva Convention, and I have no idea which.
David, the needing to skim is why I stopped listening to (and then reading) Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody books. I also have all the Harry Potter books as read by Stephen Fry, but don’t know if I’ll ever bother with them. Maybe leading up to the seventh book.
I’m listening to _Post Captain_ now, and after they had dinner with Captain Christy-Pallier (spelling from memory) I went back and looked at the text of _Master and Commander_. I was surprised to find how *short* the battles were on the page; somehow they loom all out of proportion in the ear. Good stuff, though how very disorienting the opening of _Post Captain_ must’ve been when it was published.
I’ve read all the Aubrey/Maturin books and I have the Patrick Tull recordings up to The Nutmeg of Consolation. I have not been able to find anything past that and I had a heck of a time finding that one. Has the whole series been done by Recorded Books?
About the Master and Commander movie… I think it picks up the basic thread of the 10th book “The Far Side of the World” when they are rounding Cape Horn. In the book, they are looking for an American frigate but in the movie they are looking for a French frigate. I don’t know where the battle scenes are supposed to be from, but the Galapagos Islands are certainly a part of the book. The movie does not mention the Gunner and his wife but it does have Mr. Hollum as the Jonah and disposes of him in a different manner. In the book, Stephen falls down in the gangway and hits his head, rather than being shot by the Marine officer, and must be landed on an island so that he may be trephined by the parson, Rev. Martin. I believe the scene where he is operating on himself to remove the musket ball is actually derived from when he duelled with Richard Canning in India and he operated to remove a pistol ball from his own abdomen. The end of the movie is from a different book entirely, since there is no ship to ship action in the Far Side of the World.
I agree with David. Tull does a masterful job of bringing across distinct English, Scottish and Irish accents. His distinction of McAdam’s (the Northern Irish surgeon of the Otter)sharp, quick, harsh brogue when put with Maturin’s flatter Dublin patter is as flawless as his distinction between the quarterdeck and the fo’csle hands or his West Country burr and Wapping/Hackney slang. All are equally genuine and wholly believable.
TJ: Our local library system was able to provide Recorded Books versions of all of them through _Blue at the Mizzen_. (They apparently got a huge endowment some years back, from a very wealthy blind person, specifically for audiobook purchases.)
TJ: Recorded Books seems to have done all of them as they all seem available on Audible.com as downloads. Interlibrary loan is also likely to be a help.